About

Sara McAllister is a Ph.D. candidate at CMU. She is interested in computer systems, particularly caching and storage. Her work includes a focus on improving efficiency and sustainability through hardware-software co-design and grounding design in mathematical modeling. Her work has appeared at OSDI, ICML, and SOSP — including receiving a Best Paper at SOSP 2021. She is a 2021 NDSEG fellow and a 2023 EECS Rising Star. Sara interned twice at Microsoft Research. She also strives to increase inclusion in computer science, including by creating a DEI course for CS Ph.D. students. Due to these efforts, she was awarded CMU’s Graduate Student Service Award in 2022 and a Best Paper at SIGCSE 2023. Prior to CMU, Sara received her Bachelor’s degree at Harvey Mudd College, interned at Facebook and Yelp, completed a capstone project with Pure Storage, and researched computer systems at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Education

Carnegie Mellon University

Ph.D. , Computer Science

Class of 2025

Awards & Publications